


Fathers' Day

by Britpacker



Series: Life On Earth [7]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2011-12-08
Packaged: 2018-08-15 17:05:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8064838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: The big day's arrived: the boys are about to become daddies.  Trip's excited.  Malcolm? He's still trying to work out how he ever got into this position.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** They're still Paramounts, but I'll claim any and all errors. Sentences in italics = thoughts. I've always wondered if the boys would approach anything from the same angle - the answer I've come to is.... probably not!  
> 

"I still say it was cheating. Sexual coercion, not to mention downright bloody deviousness."

"Aw, c'mon, Malcolm." Letting himself be marched at double-time across the JFK Spaceport compound, Trip Tucker adopted his best beagle-eyed helpless look in the vain hope of seeing a softening in the mid-Atlantic eyes of his beloved spouse. "I knew you were real antsy 'bout _our labour_ as Johnny calls it, so I wanted to help you unwind. What's wrong with givin' my gorgeous husband the lovin' he deserves?"

"Giving me _the lovin'_ and then turning on the wheedling when I'm a puddle of bliss and couldn't deny you my favourite phase pistol for scrap?" Vulcanesque, one sable brow arched. Trip spread his hands wide, scanning the melee around the huge glass-domed lobby in the hope of spotting their driver. _Or failing that_ , he thought, gnawing his bottom lip, _a great big hole in the floor to disappear through._

Malcolm was really pissed this time. 

In true Tucker fashion he picked up his spade and kept digging. "Darlin' you've been jumpy as a kitten caught in the dog pound for weeks, and I know it's 'cause you want everythin' to be perfect when the baby arrives. I'm real sorry if you feel I was takin' advantage 'f bein' irresistible, bringing up the M-word right after..."

"After I'd come so hard for the third time in a row I thought the universe had just caved in." Though he tried to pout, Malcolm Reed was fighting off a gut-buster laugh, irritation no match for how simply and utterly adorable his lovely lummox of a husband was when he floundered. "You've learned more strategy than I thought, I'll grant you that: a candle-lit dinner, all my favourite snogging songs, and then..."

"Ain't no strategy in _that_ , Mister Reed." The frozen set had thawed from the smaller man's angular features, but Trip's heart sank with the leaden realisation of exactly what Mal believed he'd tried last night. "Damn, I'm a jerk! I wasn't trying to force your hand over the middle names, it was just... Hell, lyin' with you in my arms, all soft and purrin' like you do..."

"Trip Tucker, for the thousandth time, I do not _purr_!"

"'kay, I'm not gonna argue." The unspoken _this time_ hung in the air for a heartbeat. "But I couldn't stop myself askin', 'cause I really want everyone to know exactly whose baby Charles Tucker the Fourth is."

"If the lab's done its job as claimed and he's _the perfect 50/50 split between both parents_ that should be obvious anyway."

The sceptical twist to the parroted pledge suggested to Trip his beloved shared his own doubts on that score, but he seized the disguised olive-branch behind it with both hands. "If you really don't wanna call him Charles Malcolm Reed Tucker, we won't," he volunteered, letting his voice crack just enough to hint at the enormity of the sacrifice offered. With a tut of mock exasperation, Malcolm yanked him off-balance into an alcove off the space port doors and pushed onto his toes for a brief, hard kiss.

"You swear you weren't trying to force my hand? Oaths under duress aren't considered binding in law, you know."

"Malcolm, I could _never_ force you." But he could plead, and nobody knew better than his partner that Charles Tucker III's honours degrees in Advanced Engineering and Warp Mechanics were matched by that in Superior Wheedling. "I'm just so proud we're havin' this baby together, I want the whole world t' know about it, even if he's always gonna be known as plain CT4. I know you're worried he'll get bullied for havin' two famous names in one, but no schoolyard tough-guy's gonna risk annoying the most dangerous man in Starfleet."

"I might have lost my fearsome reputation by then." Gazing into the summer-sky eyes he loved Malcolm Reed hadn't the heart to deny their owner anything, rendering all his complaints about dubious tactics insignificant. Immunisation against the Tucker charm was something medical science was a long way from developing. 

Malcolm sincerely hoped that breakthrough was never made.

"It's really that important to you?" he asked wonderingly, the smouldering sense of awe that such a glorious man could love him so much flaring up to engulf him at Trip's eager head-wag. 

"Yep."

"And you won't consider Charles Jonathan Tucker, even in honour of his godfather?"

"I want to honour _you_ , Mal. Our names together, just like our DNA. Please?"

His head started moving before the brain inside could issue orders. "If it means that much to you, love... what choice did I ever have? Now don't stand there wiping the floor with your chin - we'd better find our car."

*

They were dropped outside a discreet office block gleaming with glass and steel, its appearance and the sedate sign over the door which announced it as _Gonzalez-Stricker Associates_ giving the impression of a profitable banking operation rather than one of the planet's most advanced genetic manipulation centres. Ushering his partner across the street ahead of him, Trip sent out a silent halloo of thanks to their old friend Phlox for directing them this way. Understated, unobtrusive and ruthlessly professional, everything about the place might have been designed with his preternaturally private other half in mind.

"Captain Tucker, Captain Reed, it's good to see you again." The smart middle-aged receptionist in her goldfish-bowl lobby stood as they passed through frosted-glass doors, shaking the rain from their coats. "Professor Gonzalez is almost ready for you, but if you have a moment to fill in the final paperwork..."

"Of course, Miss Barclay." Malcolm, Trip noted appreciatively, wiped his hand discreetly against his dry pant leg before offering it to the woman. He couldn't help but notice the faint flush and simper with which she shook it. "I've conceded defeat on the major issue, so perhaps my husband should have the honour."

"First time for everything." Genially pumping her hand, Trip slipped into the single chair and leaned back to smile at Malcolm moving up behind to lightly massage his shoulders. It broke his heart to feel the long fingers tremble as they kneaded already relaxed muscles. "It's gonna be okay," he mouthed with the receptionist's attention was distracted by an incoming comm.. "Baby's doin' just fine, and you're gonna be a fantastic daddy."

"I'll reserve judgement on _you_ until you promise not to lead the poor bugger astray like you did me." Now they were here, internal pressure levels were reaching critical. Malcolm Reed, the master of stillness, was fidgeting like a small boy about to wet his pants. "God, I wish it was all over!"

"Everything's going smoothly, Captain, and Professor Gonzalez will be with you imminently." With a flourish Marianne Barclay saved the impending arrival's last personal details, cheerfully waving the two fathers toward a secluded alcove filled with deep-cushioned leather couches, a mahogany coffee table and assorted plates of fresh snacks. "Another thirty minutes and he'll be here."

Considering what he'd just said, that should have cheered up his jumpy spouse. Trip supposed he really should know the man better after ten years together. Malcolm blenched visibly.

"What have we let ourselves in for?" he muttered, unresisting as Trip guided him toward the waiting area. "Sick-stained uniforms, a house that pongs of baby shit, not to mention the grandparents descending en mass to stick their beaks in. Why did I think this was a good idea, again?"

"Prob'ly sexual coercion."

He was gratified that he could at least still win a reluctant grin. "Siddown, Mal. Doc'll call us when they're ready."

"Whether we are or not?" His collywobbles would, Reed considered, have driven a less forbearing man to murder, but Trip just smiled his wide-open, _ain't-life-wonderful?_ smile and picked up a PADD of magazines. Sucking in a deep breath he followed suit, mentally dismantling the prototype portable phase weapon sitting on the lab table in his head. At least while he had nothing better to do, he might be able to identify the cause of the persistent misfire driving half the munitions team insane.

It beat staring into space and wondering where the nearest bathroom was located, at any rate.

*

"Gentlemen, if you'd care to come through." Ana Gonzalez was a sleek, graceful woman in her mid-thirties who regarded her anxious clients with the appraising eye of the anthropologist. Despite her firm handshake and deft air of confidence, Trip had never wholly warmed to her.

Malcolm, on the other hand, relaxed visibly as she guided them along a sterile corridor and into the small ante-room where a single artificial womb stood on a raised platform, tubes and sensors protruding from every corner. Inside, blurred by tinted glass and a cocoon of translucent liquid, the tiny figure of Charles Malcolm Reed Tucker - his full name emblazoned on every monitor around the room - could be seen gently easing its way along the carefully-lined metal birth canal.

"As you can see, everything's going to plan. Another - oh, fifteen minutes and you'll be holding you son for the first time. Have you decided which of you will cut the umbilical?"

"That'll be Trip." 

If she heard the panic in her smaller client's voice, Ana Gonzalez was too much of a pro to call him on it. Tucker draped a reassuring arm around his partner. "We're good t' go whenever Charlie is," he said, deafeningly loud above the soft peep of monitors and the rustle of lab coats. The spotty young assistant crouched before the birthing device flashed a friendly smile.

"Looks like he's ready. Readings are all optimal, Professor. The head is in position."

Briefly excitement cracked the scientist's stoic mask, twisting Trip's susceptible heart with the memory of Malcolm on Enterprise, delighting in the chance to display his skills. Without thinking he looped his other arm around the Englishman, pulling him snugly back into the cradle of his thighs as the monitors began to sparkle and a dozen new cheeps joined the mechanical chorus. Resting his chin on his husband's shoulder he stared at the blurry figure inside the machine, silently willing it on. _C'mon, little buddy. You've got Tucker impatience and Reed persistence working together here. You can do this._

One of the technicians wheezed, the sound echoing through the quiet room. The men glanced at the slim scientist, panic twisting both faces. "Asthma," she mouthed, watching them sag with relief. Sinking back into Trip's supporting embrace, Malcolm returned his attention to the small creature visibly inching his way from the heart of the machine.

"That's our baby." The wonder in Trip's whisper cracked the frosty layer of fear over Malcolm's vitals and blindly he worked an arm free to catch his hand, unsurprised by its quiver. Time slowed to the crawl he'd once associated with imminent attacks on Enterprise; his own breathing, short and shallow, resounded through his head. Biting his lip, Malcolm forced it to slow to the steady rhythm of the monitoring equipment around him. 

"Almost there." Ana Gonzalez's crisp, slightly-accented voice had dropped to a whisper that shimmered off the nerve ends, her exhilaration a palpable presence in the room as the neck of the device began to bulge. "Captain Tucker if you'll move over to the table please."

"Go on, love." Malcolm locked his knees, willing them not to buckle as Trip disengaged his protective hold and edged, like a man approaching a wounded wolf, toward the low, sterile desktop jutting out from the front of the artificial womb. 

Tension, he diagnosed, watching his husband stoop and have his hands positioned by the younger of the two technicians. Steel springs twisted in his guts; he held his breath, narrowed gaze fixed on the same spot as every other pair of eyes in the room. Gooseflesh was breaking out on pre-existing gooseflesh.

"I c'n see 'im!" With emotion thickening his throat Trip's accent deepened to the level at which Hoshi Sato claimed a UT became essential. "Look, Mal! Blond hair!"

"Oh!" 

Unconsciously he leaned forward, rapt by the gradual separation of human scrap from machine. He caught the tremor in his husband's hands as, guided by Ana Gonzalez, Trip disconnected the narrow metal umbilical cord and lifted the writhing, squalling product of their joined DNA high, tears streaming unnoticed down his suntanned cheeks. "Good lungs," the scientist remarked wryly, somehow contriving to towel the baby dry while his taller parent still held him at eye level. "Captain, if you'll just give us a moment to run some post-natal checks..."

"Uh, sure, sorry." Starry eyes following every move of his hands, Trip lowered his son into the woman's arms, his fingers lingering against the glowing little cheek. "He's perfect."

All three professionals in the room went into efficient action while Malcolm stood petrified, staring at the wriggling little bundle on the pristine table that screamed lustily in protest at every indignity being inflicted. He was dimly conscious of Trip shuffling nearer; of the note of satisfaction in the professor's voice, muffled as if it came across eons of empty space. 

He couldn't feel the tiled floor beneath his feet. His head was woollen. And as his son yelled, one tiny fist emerging from the fluffy blanket in which Professor Gonzalez was trying to wrap him, Malcolm discovered to his astonishment that he had never been happier in his entire life.

"Here Charles, go to your..." Ana Gonzalez glanced beyond the smaller man's shoulder to a large data screen, her glossy lips moving up into a tender smile. "Poppa."

"Hey, lil' guy." Eagerly Trip extended his arms, receiving the precious bundle with a reverent dip of the head. As if it were made of finest crystal he began to sway, gently rocking until the furious howls from within the fleecy bundle quieted to reluctant whimpers. "C'mon, Mal, you wanna hold him?"

"I..." _Oh God yes_ , but panic took an iron grip on his previously cotton-wool limbs, leaving him to stare helplessly at his approaching husband, tongue slipping out to wet parched lips. "I -Trip, I don't know how to hold a baby!"

"'s okay, darlin'. Just keep his head supported." Before he could object his arms had been positioned like a rubber toy's and the squealing bundle planted firmly within them. "Say hi to Daddy, Charlie," Trip croaked.

Swallowing hard, Malcolm peered at the scrunched-up features of his tiny child and the rest of the room - even that part containing his husband - melted away. "Hello, darling," he murmured, blinking against the moisture that distorted the perfect image. "He's got your nose."

"Anybody got a tissue?" Clumsy, Trip fumbled in the inside pocket of his jacket, sweaty fingers slipping against the cool shell of his camera. Grunting his thanks for the cloth that magically appeared he scrubbed his hot face for a moment before whipping the device out, seeking the auto-correct button to counter the inevitable camera-shake. Two shots were logged before his vision fogged up and he had to wipe his eyes again, barely aware of the hush that had possessed the pristine room. "You got the knack, Mal. He's quieted right down for you."

Big blue eyes were wandering over his face, as if the baby were trying to memorise his features. Carefully, Malcolm leaned against the wall and settled Charles more comfortably in the crook of one arm, tracing the sweet upturn of the little nose. 

He didn't notice another picture being rapidly snapped. Indeed, his surroundings only intruded onto Malcolm's consciousness again when a pair of strong arms wrapped around his middle and he was pulled carefully into his husband's protective embrace. "He's beautiful," he breathed, tilting his head to catch the blond's bleary eyes. Trip's sigh fanned against his cheek.

"Yeah. You think he looks like me?"

"Blond hair, that nose, those big blue eyes... I'm doomed."

Feeling tension clamp the muscular figure behind him, he hastened to clarify, adding a self-conscious peck to Trip's chin. "I can't resist one of you. What am I going to do with _two_ lovely blond Charles Tuckers ganging up on me?"

"His eyes might change." Trip, he realised with relief, touched their son as tentatively as he did, blunt fingertips barely brushing the full cheeks. "And he'd better have your bone structure, or I want my money back!"

"I don't remember seeing any guarantees." People were snickering, but they were beyond the happy little bubble of his new family, which made them irrelevant to Malcolm. "I - oh God!"

Tears welled up and as if a dam were being breeched he couldn't stop them spilling to sparkle on the cheekbones Trip loved so much. "I didn't expect it to be like this," he sniffled, turning to hide his face against the bigger man's neck, Charlie cradled securely between their chests. "It's just so..."

"Ain't it just?" He'd seen more of the universe than most, but right then Trip Tucker held all it contained in his arms, and for a moment the wonder of it all threatened to crush his aching chest. "Um, if we're all done here, you mind if we go get acquainted with our boy?"

"Jonah will show you to the family suites. You're staying overnight, of course?"

"As you advise it so strongly, Professor." Blinking as if woken from a deep sleep, Malcolm favoured the woman with an abstracted smile. "Trip, I'm not sure..."

"You carry him, Mal. You're doin' great." Trip ached to feel the softness of his baby in his own arms once more, but Malcolm needed this. Keeping a hand at the small of his husband's back for reassurance Trip allowed himself to be steered out through a discreet rear door and up a flight of carpeted stairs to a bright lounge space filled with shabby sofas and easy chairs. A small kitchen stood off to one side, and through a set of frosted glass doors at the far end of the room he could make out a spacious bedroom with a white-painted cot standing close to a king-sized bed. Children's paintings hung on the walls and a pair of full-length windows stood slightly open, allowing a cooling drift of air through the suite. "Nice," he approved.

"The kitchen's fully stocked - compliments of Gonzalez-Stricker Associates,- their large and wheezy guide announced, directing the more dazed of the new fathers to a seat with his big brown eyes alone. "And there are emergency buttons in every room. If you're worried about anything at all, any time of the day or night, call. There's a doctor and a geneticist on call 24/7, so please don't feel you'd be disturbing anyone. The first few hours are always anxious for new parents."

 _Especially when one of them's as paranoid as my Mal_ , Trip added silently, watching relief flood his partner's uncharacteristically readable expression. "Diapers?" he asked.

"Top shelf of the kitchen cupboard. Bottles, sterilising equipment underneath. Milk's in the refrigerator, and the temperature gauges and timers are set on the heaters. If there's anything else you need, contact Marianne at Reception."

"Thank you." The kindness was sincere, but Malcolm was tired of it. He wanted to be left alone with Trip and their little miracle.

His family.

Charlie stirred in his arms, odd snuffling sounds emerging as he wriggled, wide blue eyes fixed wonderingly on his father's face and in that moment something happened to Malcolm Reed he had never imagined could happen again.

He fell in love. 

Charles Tuckers, he decided, snuggling back into the couch and calling the third of that name down beside him with the crook of a finger. One of them had turned his empty, ordered existence into a full-blooded, wonderful life. Who would have thought another - albeit a half-English one with the middle names of Malcolm and Reed - would make it feel so utterly complete?

Trip's arms encircled him and he lolled back, closing his heavy eyes as his head came to its accustomed spot against a solidly muscled shoulder. All the months of soul-searching before he'd found the strength to grant his husband's dearest wish; all the weeks of guilty doubt, fearing the commitment made was too great to bear; even the sleepless nights since the birth date had been confirmed, fretting about how he would feel, what he would do.... they had been worthwhile.

With his husband embracing him and their son snoozing contentedly in his arms, Malcolm Reed surrendered to the overwhelming emotion of the greatest day, and slept.

Epilogue

"He's fine, Malcolm. Babies sleep a lot, y' know? It kind of allows their parents to get some rest themselves, 'cause they sure as hell don't get none while the kid's awake."

Hands on hips Trip tried to glower at his husband but even in the mysterious light cast by a full moon through half-opened drapes he knew the effect was being ruined by Malcolm's complete lack of attention. Any other night he would have resented the man's total disinterest in his damned impressive (if he did say so himself for the want of compliments from elsewhere) semi-naked physique.

Not now, with Malcolm transfixed by the tiny figure dwarfed by his plain white crib, just as he had been earlier when Trip had efficiently fed and changed their son for the first time. He'd never dreamed sharing his precious lover's attention could be so easy.

The smaller man glanced up and his shy half-smile widened. "You're sure the monitor's working properly?"

"Positive. Hell, the finest engineer in Starfleet checked it, didn't he?"

Briefly Malcolm held his fingers to his lips before transferring the kiss to Charlie's sleep-smoothed brow. "Sorry. It's all a bit befuddling. I keep thinking if I turn away, he's going to disappear."

"By the time he's eight you'll be wishin' he would, if he's as noisy as the average Tucker kid." Trip clambered beneath the bedcovers, holding them, up invitingly while his husband stripped to his boxers, folding his discarded garments neatly onto a chair. "You're happy with him?"

"I'm not planning on returning him to the shop anytime soon." Strong arms closed around him, pulling him back into the comforting curve of his partner's body and the last semblance of tension leeched with a pleasurable sting from Malcolm's muscles. "God, I'm knackered!"

"Git used to it, babe." His own eyelids felt as lined with lead. With a sigh that tickled the side of his husband's neck, Trip let them sink down and drifted happily into dreamland.

*

He woke with a start, somehow knowing before consciousness hit him that the bed was empty. "Mal?"

"Ssshh, he's only just settling." Silver in the moonlight, Malcolm sat on top of his folded clothes with Charlie tucked in the crook of his arm, sucking contentedly on his bottle. "I was awake when he started up, so I thought... you're going to have to do it sometime, Reed. Might as well make a start now. Am I doing it right?"

"Charlie'd tell y' if you weren't." Trip pushed himself up onto his pillows, pausing briefly to admire the sculpted perfection of his spouse's naked top half, the muscles in his arm flexing as he shifted the baby's flaccid weight. "You slept at all?"

"Dozed." The crude sucking sounds increased and a glance down told Malcolm why; the bottle was empty and his son still wanted more. "Erm, he has to be burped now, right?"

"Lemme help." Mal hadn't been exaggerating when he claimed his parents never let him near his little sister as a baby, Trip mused. _And what kind of screwed up daddy in this day and age thinks changing diapers is womens' work?_

Gently he settled their son over the Englishman's shoulder, rubbing small circles over the tiny back. "You've done a great job darlin'; he's getting sleepy again," he whispered. A faint shimmer of amusement passed through the brunet.

"He's not the only one," he admitted, stifling a yawn against his free hand. Carefully lifting a whimpering Charlie, Trip brushed a kiss through his fellow father's hair.

"Get into bed, Cap'n Reed, and close those pretty eyes," he commanded, unsurprised to find yet another order being ignored as the smaller man hung over his shoulder, studying his every move as he lay the baby down. "He should sleep through now, if we're real lucky and he has that ol' Reed discipline. Come to bed?"

"You watch him be a bloody Tucker and want attention all the time." With a cheeky grin, Malcolm burrowed into a nest of blankets, light-headed with a potent mix of exhaustion and giddy pride. Trip pouted at him.

"Just for that, I'm gonna sleep on the couch," he threatened, giving the blankets a tug. Malcolm chortled, stuffing a fist into his mouth with a guilty glance at the cot. 

"He's okay." The momentary look of fright was too much, and Trip crawled back between sheets already taking warmth from his husband's body. Instinctively they resumed their cosy spooned position, Trip's chin on Malcolm's shoulder as the smaller man snuggled back into his hold. "G'night, Daddy."

"'Night, Poppa." The warmth of his husband's chuckle caressed him as, with a satisfied sigh, Malcolm followed his newborn son into sleep.


End file.
